


To Change My State With Kings

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Same-Sex Marriage is a Thing, Angst, Flash Fic, Forced Marriage, M/M, Marriage to Seal Deposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Richard marries Henry as part of resigning the crown. It isn't a happy occasion.
Relationships: Henry IV of England/Richard II of England
Kudos: 17





	To Change My State With Kings

Henry probably thinks it’s a mercy. He won’t have assassins come in the night to slit Richard’s throat, nor let him starve to death in a mockery of dignity, walled up in a castle he cannot leave. Instead, they sit next to each other at the same raised table Richard has known all his life, celebrating Richard’s third marriage. But the celebrations feel funereal, and the crown on his head is not that of a king, and he wants to scream, or fight, or do anything that might make him feel a little less powerless, and a little less conscious of the loss that accompanies him everywhere. If Richard had his way, he would forget the crown, forget England’s absence, like an amputated limb, with all its phantom sensations of power. His crest and Henry’s are joined now, but Henry is king, and Richard is consort, and he must behave properly, he supposes.

For a moment, he envies his great-grandfather, allowed the privilege of dying in private. He died deposed, yes, but not in this mockery of a marriage, and he should be a saint besides. What is Richard? A consort who will never be king again. 

Henry turns to him, with a smile that is neither mocking nor kind, and Richard looks resolutely out at the hall, watching the musicians in their gallery. The hall feels suddenly too hot, but he looks ahead. What else can he do? There is nothing poetic about this moment, and it is merely ridiculous to pretend that there is any dignity in it at all. There is only one reason a man would marry a man, and it is for one of the same reasons that a man might marry a woman: the transference of property, of titles. Anything that might have remained to Richard after the deposition is Henry’s now. He will obey his husband in all things, and their match shall bear a single child: the legitimacy of Henry’s reign. 

All the water in the rough, rude sea may not be enough to wash the balm from an anointed king, but the deposition and the marriage will. They’ll see him powerless, yoked and submissive beside Henry, and every day, England will know and Richard will know that he is king no longer. Henry looks expectantly at him. Richard turns his head. 

“Husband,” Henry says, as if nothing has changed. He puts a hand on Richard’s shoulder, and Richard wants to push it away and say something arch and sneering and kingly. “This is for the best. Please look at me.”

And Richard does. He is king no longer, and every day for the rest of his crownless life will remind him of this one irreversible fact. What choice does he have but to obey?

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever get tired of writing "marriage as a part of deposition" AUs for this pairing? No, probably not. This was originally written for the prompt "100 Words of Marriage as Punishment" on Fail_FandomAnon. 
> 
> Title is from Shakespeare's Sonnet 29.


End file.
